12 Days of Cookies - Day 5 - Chocolate Chip and Peppermint Crunch Crackles

As a child, there were definitely times when I was convinced that my mom had a direct line to Santa Claus and really could call him up to cancel Christmas.  She'd pick up the phone and start dialing, and my sisters and I would all panic and try to undo whatever damage we'd done that evening.  I'm pretty sure now that she was calling my dad at work, but she made it sound really good.  =)

Now that I'm a parent, I have a much better appreciation for what she must have gone through.  And I only have two girls, not four.  Earlier this evening, I had to make a trip upstairs, where I threatened my children with not putting up the Christmas tree tomorrow if they didn't stop fighting and be quiet and go to sleep.  Not quite to the point of canceling Christmas, but not far off if they don't settle down and stop driving me crazy... =)  Fortunately, there is one thing that is putting me in the holiday spirit this evening.  It's the fact that my whole house smells of chocolate and peppermint.

Just for the record, a rolling pin isn't that great at crushing small candy canes into pieces.  A hammer works much better. =)  I didn't get to do much of that tonight, but it was nice for venting my frustrations last night, which is when I made the cookie dough for my Day 5 cookie.  It needed chill time, and since I had to work today, I knew I didn't have much chance of getting cookies baked for today unless I made the dough ahead of time.  It's kind of surprising that this is the first chocolate cookie that I'm posting.  And it does have plenty of chocolate in it--a bunch of bittersweet, a little unsweetened, and some chocolate chips thrown in for good measure.  The peppermint comes from both the candy canes and some peppermint extract.  The cookie dough reminded me a lot of brownie batter, which isn't a bad thing considering how much I like brownies.  The recipe says to chill for 3 hours to 1 day.  Mine was in the fridge for just under 24 hours, and it was actually too hard to scoop at first.  I had to let it warm up for about an hour, I think.  Once I was able to work with the dough, I ended up baking my cookies for 11 minutes at 325 degrees F, and got about 3 1/2 dozen from the recipe.

The verdict?  I think it's a very good thing that I'm planning to pack most of these up tomorrow to ship out to someone.  They are way too dangerous to keep in the house.  I ate three already, and it hasn't been that long since I finished baking them.  Gillian seemed to like the one she had for dessert.  I wasn't too surprised when she asked me for more milk, though.  =)  These are quite chocolatey.  Mine didn't get a very crackled appearance, but that's okay.  They had a nice fudgy texture that I really like.  And the candy cane bits added an interesting textural element.  I didn't top my cookies with anything, though I might try that next time.

If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can find the recipe here.  And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up for today!

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project